THE
critical condition of the Turkish Empire in Asia may render interesting
a short account of the various mixed populations—Moslem, Christian, and
Jewish—which are mingled together, in Asia Minor, Syria, and Arabia,
under Turkish rule, and of the changes slowly
occurring during the last forty years in
their relative position. The Armenians especially attract notice for the
moment, but the discontent of subject population is not confined to that
unfortunate race, or indeed to Christians only.

The
Armenians are the only Aryan race ruled by the Sultan with the exception
of the scattered Greek population found in the cities of Syria, and
forming a strong factor in the West of Asia Minor. Herodotus informs us
that the Armenians of his day were Phrygian colonists, and the Phrygians
belonged to the European family of the Aryans, and entered Asia Minor
from the West. The Armenian language is one of the most interesting of
early Aryan tongues, being most nearly connected with the Slav
languages. It has become somewhat corrupted by the introduction of
Turkish and even of Arabic words, but it is substantially Aryan in
grammar and in vocabulary, and its words often throw light on the origin
of terms which would otherwise remain doubtful. Even the term Arya,
which has so variously been explained, is perhaps best connected with
the Armenian Ayr
for a man. The two great streams of migration which brought the Aryans
into Asia Minor appear to have followed the northern route from the
West, and the southern route from the East. In the ninth century B. C.,
the Medes had advanced from near the Caucasus to the shores of Lake Van,
superseding an earlier Mongol population in Matiene; and in the Persian
period the Lycian language is more nearly akin to the Iranian tongues
than to the European, though strongly influenced already by Greek. The
early Phrygian inscriptions appear on the other hand to belong to the
European family of Aryan speech. In our own time the Armenians represent
the northern immigrants, while the very corrupt Georgian language,
traceable back to the Middle Ages, is also Aryan but more probably of
Medic origin. The Armenian has however borrowed from the Georgian, and
the Georgian from the Armenian.

The
early history of the Armenians is to a great extent legendary. Their
civilisation (including their alphabet) was, like that of the Georgians,
derived from the Greeks of Constantinople, but the controversies of the
sixth century resulted in the separation of the Armenian Church from
that of Byzantium, and they were, like most of the Oriental Christian
Churches, converted to Monophysite belief by Jacob Baradaeus, In the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Christian kingdom of Armenia became
an important bulwark of civilisation, long-resisting the attacks not
only of the Turkish and Kurdish tribes of Baghdad, but also of the
Mongols when advancing on the tottering Frank kingdom of Palestine. In
the thirteenth century especially the Norman feudal system became the
model of the Armenian State. The 'Assizes of Jerusalem ' were then
translated into Armenian; the Templars and Hospitallers were given lands
and castles in all parts of the kingdom. Some of the Armenian clergy
were reconciled to Rome, and founded the still existing though
unimportant sect of Armenian Catholics. The kings of Armenia were allied
by marriage to the Norman Princes of Autioch, and their armies joined
the Frank forces in opposing the Tartars. Even from the first the
Crusader Kings had married Armenian wives, and the power of the Counts
of Edessa, who held the highroad from Baghdad by which alone an advance
on Syria was possible, was confirmed by the Armenian alliance. To speak
of Armenia as only a geographical expression is to ignore its history,
and the services of its kings to the cause of civilisation in Western
Asia. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the power of the old
Seljuk conquerors, who under Melek Shah had ruled from India to the
borders of Egypt, and to the gates of Byzantium, was entirely broken
down by the Crusaders on the West and by the Armenians on the East. The
Sultans of Iconium, from whom the Osmanli family traces its descent,
were then hemmed in by the Greeks on the West, and by the Armenian
Christian State on the East. They ruled a very mingled population, and
were already themselves of mixed stock, Georgian and Armenian wives
being sometimes the mothers of the Turkish heirs. The destruction of
civilisation thus painfully built up by European statesmen was not due
to any Turkish effort, but resulted from the great wave of Mongol
outbreak which swept over Western Asia and Russia. The Turks suffered
equally with the Christians from this barbarian invasion. Only when the
Egyptians under Bibars and Kelaun had driven the Franks out of Syria,
and when the Mongols had laid waste Armenia, did the Turkish power begin
to revive: and the Sultans of Iconium inherited the ruins after the
Tartar retreat.

The
Armenian race in our own times is perhaps not purely Aryan, and like the
Kurds—descended from the ancient Par-thians—they have no doubt in their
veins a strong infusion of Turkish and Mongol blood. In physical type
they are among the finest of West Asiatic races—tall and strong, with
ruddy faces, but with dark eyes and hair like Mongols. They are reputed
to be one of the cleverest races in the Turkish Empire, but they cannot
be said to be popular. Their power of acquiring wealth by usury renders
them as odious to the peasantry of other stocks as are the Jews, and
they are despised by Moslems on account of their drunkenness, which is a
common vice among them, as also among the Oriental Christians. Fanatical
hatred has no doubt an important part in the persecution of Armenians,
but the grudges of the Moslem peasants have also no doubt been paid on
usurers, at a time when the ruling power has become alarmed at the
spread of revolutionary ideas among its Christian subjects, and seeks to
stamp them out with a barbarity which has always characterised the Turks
when their rule is disputed by any subject people, whether Moslem or
Christian. The subjugation of Syria, within the present century, was
marked by cruelties as ruthless as those of to-day, but directed against
the sturdy Moslem peasantry, who fought for liberty during many years in
the mountains of Galilee and Samaria.

The
present moment recalls to mind the condition of Asia under the Seljuk
Turks at the close of the eleventh century, A.D. The Koran not only does
not sanction, but its teaching discourages the persecution of
Christians, who, according to Muhammad, were nearer to Islam than Jews
or Mazdeans. All 'People of a book, ' both those who accepted the
Gospels, those who revered the Hebrew Scriptures, and those who
preserved the Persian Zend-Avesta, were placed in quite a different
category from that of the
Kufar or Pagans, who belonged to neither of
the great religious existing in Muhammad's time. So the
Kafir was given the choice of 'the Koran or
the Sword,' but Christians were only reduced to tribute; and the Koran
precepts were observed alike by the first Arab Khalifs of Damascus, and
by the latter Abbaside Khalifs of Baghdad. Harun-er-Rashid gave to
Charlemagne the keys of Jerusalem, and persecution only began in the
eleventh century, when the fanatical and heretical Fatimite Khalif of
Egypt seized Jerusalem. Before his time El Mukaddasi speaks of the
Syrian Christians as being extremely independent, in bearing, and of the
Moslems as constantly suffering from Byzantine inroads on the coast
cities. The Seljuk Sultans, who protected the last feeble descendants of
the great house of Abbas, in Baghdad, having become converts to the
Sunnee or more orthodox teaching of Islam, distinguished themselves
after the death of Melek Shah by their persecution of Christians. It was
the cruelty of the sons of Ortok in Jerusalem which roused the wrath of
all Europe against the Turks, and which led to the first Crusade, just
as in our own time the wrath of Europe is roused by Turkish persecution
of Christians in the East.

But
it must not be forgotten that for nearly a thousand years the Turks have
been the ruling race in Asia. Even in Egypt, since the twelfth century,
the rulers have never been Arabs, though the population did not include
any important Turkish element in any age. The Mongols indeed appear at
at the very dawn of history as the dominant people, in Chaldea, in
Armenia, in Syria, and in Egypt; and the Semitic races, which ruled
Western Asia for fifteen centuries before the Persian Conquest, only
again attained independence for four hundred years between the time of
Muhammad and of Melek Shah. During the remainder of historic time they
have been subject either to Mongols or to Aryans—the Persians, Greeks,
Romans and Franks. The great struggle of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries produced not a single conqueror of Arab race, for Saladin was
a Kurd, and Bibars was also of Turkish origin. The force of Arab genius
seems to have been expended a few centuries after Muhammad, and though
it is to the Arabs that we owe the preservation and diffusion of that
civilisation, which they learned from Greek, Persian, and Indian
subjects, it cannot be said that the Arab race has shewn great ruling
qualities, since the decay of the Abbaside power which reached its
zenith in the ninth century of our era.

The
Turks themselves learned much from Persia and from Greece, through their
first relations with subject races in Asia. The Turkish palaces of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Asia Minor, like those erected by
the Mongols at Samarkand and elsewhere in Central Asia, are evidence of
the influence of Persian architecture on these rude conquering
Turanians. The Turks adopted the Arab alphabet, as the Mongols adopted
the Syriac of the Nestorians. The modern Turkish dialect of Stamboul is
so full of Arab and Persian words, for which there were often no terms
in Turkish proper, that only about a tenth part of the Stambuli
vocabulary now traces to pure Turkish brought by the Seljuks from the
Oxus. The majority of the ruling class in Turkey is of mongrel origin,
and only among the peasantry of Asia Minor is the purer Turkish type to
be discovered: for in Europe it is mingled with Slav blood, and in
Kurdistan with Persian. But the tradition of a rude and masterful
domination survives from the time of Osmanli Conquest, and the Aryan and
Semitic subjects of the Sultan possess no tradition of independent,
self-government. The harsh bondage of four centuries has stamped out the
spirit of freedom, among Moslems and Christians alike, unless it is
still to be recognised among Armenian rebels.

The
power of the Christians in Turkey lias, however, steadily increased
within the last forty years. The massacres of Damascus led to the
establishment of a Christian State in the Lebanon, answering roughly to
the old county of Tripoli under the Franks. Protected by the European
powers, with a constitution which prevents the Turk from levying
arbitrary taxes, and with a Christian police, under a Christian governor
elected by the powers, the province of the Lebanon presents to us the
one bright spot in an empire filled with cruelty and oppression. When
this state was first established by Lord Dufferin, its population was
quite as mixed as that of Armenia. The Druze nobles, who dominated the
Maronite Christians, answered to the Kurds of Armenia, and the
separation of Christian and Moslem presented a problem quite as
difficult in appearance of solution. Yet the establishment of this
province has been so successful that we have heard no more of any
massacres in Syria. The Druzes have gradually and peacefully retired to
Hermon and Bashan, and an independent Christian peasantry has prospered
so greatly, under just government, that the Lebanon is unable to contain
them, and they have gradually overflowed into other parts of Syria,
Cyprus, and neighbouring regions. The lesson so learned may surely leave
us to suppose that if it were possible to extend to North Syria the same
system of government, including the regions round Aleppo and Merash from
which the latest news of Armenian massacres now reaches us, we might
witness in time a natural sifting of population, as the Armenians
gathered into a new province under Christian rule, in which the fierce
Kurds and Turks would find themselves powerless to oppress. Following
the example of the Druzes they would no doubt betake themselves to
wilder districts.

To
expect that any Moslem power will, of its own free-will, place
Christians on an equality with Moslems, and divide equally between them
the offices of government, is hopeless. It is coutrary to the Moslem
creed, and no Sultan could dare so to outrage the prejudices of his
Moslem supporters. The superior education of Syrian and Armenian
Christians has always led to their employment in minor offices, as
secretaries and scribes under Turkish governors, just as the Copts in
Egypt have long occupied similar positions. But the only instances in
which Christian governors have been sanctioned by the Sultans are those
in which European compulsion has forced them on the Turk. The
establishment of a mixed Christian and Moslem police is as contrary to
Turkish ideas as would be the service of Christians in the army. The law
of Turkey is theoretically the law of the Koran, interpreted to the
governor by the religious Kadi. The decisions of the Sultan rest on the
dicta of the Sheikh el Islam, and on the inspired utterances of the
Derwish orders. The equality of Christian and Moslem is a heresy which,
if proclaimed by a Moslem ruler, would probably cost him his throne. The
Sultan, whose only support is found in the acceptance by Islam of his
claim to be regarded as Khalif, based on his rank as
Hami el Haramein or 'Guardian of the two
sanctuaries' of Mecca and Jerusalem, is no free agent in his own
dominions, and can yield only to Christians on compulsion. The
establishment of village councils under a
Mukhtur, which figures as a new reform in the
recent edict, is no new feature of administration. The
Mejlis or council of native Moslem
elders—sometimes admitting Christian and Jewish members—already exists
in every town or village, but the governing power rests with the ruler
who has at his command an irregular mounted police, backed by regular
Moslem troops. The more the decree is examined the more will it be found
to alter nothing which already exists. It is not the law of the Koran
which entails suffering on Christians, but the spirit in which that law
is administered, with a fanatical harshness which has throughout history
characterised Turkish rule. That the fanatical spirit of Islam is not
yet dead we have already learned to our cost, and may see in recent
events at Stambul and in Armenia. Such events must raise throughout the
Turkish empire an excitement among Moslems which is one of the gravest
and most dangerous features of the situation. Disunited as they are
among themselves, and undermined as Islam is in the west by scepticism,
there yet remains in the wilder districts a memory of the great age of
Moslem conquest, which leads all Moslems to regard the Christian as fit
only for slavery.

The
Turkish population is confined to its ancient home in Asia Minor, where
it maintained its independence even in the days of Frank rule in Armenia
and Syria. The Popes sought in vain to convert the Sultans of Iconium,
who never proved reliable allies even when siding with Christians
against the Egyptians. The larger part of the Sultan's dominions is
occupied by the Arab nation, to whom the Turk is a stranger by race and
by language. Even in Western Asia Minor the Greek population forms an
important element. In Cyprus the Turkish immigrants are confined mostly
to the hills, the Greeks and Maronites holding the plains. In the
Lebanon and in Palestine, in Mesopotamia and Arabia, the Turk only is
found as a government official. Among all the Arab-speaking peoples
—Christian or Moslem—he is hated as a foreign oppressor, yet these
regions are the very ones which—as Khalif—it is vitally necessary for
the Sultans to possess. The loss of Mecca and of Jerusalem means the
loss of his only claim to the Khalifate —a dignity which ceased to exist
for three centuries, until it was revived and usurped by the Osmanlis,
who were not even of the Prophet's race.

The
spirit of political intrigue, which has always existed among the
Christians of the Turkish Empire, has become yet more prevalent as the
result of political events. Once more, as in the twelfth century, the
Christian powers of Europe are pressing Eastwards. The Turkish dominion
is lopped of its outlying provinces in Europe and in Africa, and Western
civilisation has reached Cyprus, and presses into Palestine. The
Christian state in the Lebanon presents a nucleus for the non-Moslem
populations in Syria itself. The railway has reached Jerusalem and
Damascus, and an invasion of Jews, driven out of Russia, has doubled the
non-Moslem population of Jerusalem, aud has spread a dozen. Jewish
agricultural colonies over the Holy Land, even as far east as Bashan.
The Christians are still held down by a government supported by Moslem
troops, but they watch with intense interest every movement of the
European powers, and though bitterly divided among themselves, according
to the ancient antagonisms of Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Georgian, and
Nestorian Churches, there is no doubt that all alike hope to be finally
rescued by European aid. The Arab Moslem population of Syria is
meanwhile rendered disaffected to the Turks by long experience of their
unjust rule, and the half subjected Bedouin of the deserts, who though
nominally Moslems have practically no religion beyond a belief in
ancestral ghosts and desert demons, watch as ever their opportunity to
raid and pillage Christian and Moslem peasantry alike, whenever the
central power shall have become too weak to control them.

In
Arabia the Turks have their most difficult task, on account of its
remote position and of its desert lands. It was in Arabia that the Turks
crushed out the only attempt made to reform Islam by returning to the
original teaching of the Koran. The persecution of the Wababi sect was
perhaps as savage as any persecution of Christians, and the aspirations
of the Arabs point to the establishment of an Arab Khalif in the person
of the Sherif of Mecca.

With
all these elements of discontent, and possible revolt, the Turks have
long been familiar. The immediate dissolution of the Turkish empire was
expected half a century ago. Yet they have stubbornly held on to their
conquests, and have even rendered more complete their subjugation of the
various and mingled elements of population whom they rule. We have so
far witnessed no general convulsion, but a gradual decay of Turkish
power beginning at its furthest frontiers, and the slow growth of small
Christian states, appearing sporadically and gradually becoming
independent. The Turks know well how unwilling all European statesman
must be to fan the flames of a great conflagration, and how jealously
they eye each other whenever the question of dividing up the Sultan's
empire is forced to the front by popular misery. An united Europe could
no doubt reduce the Sultan to-morrow to his original position as Turkish
ruler of Iconium, were it not for the question who is then to be ruler
in Stambul, in Mecca, in Syria, and at Baghdad, or in Armenia? Until
such thorny questions are settled, by agreement or by accident, the
Sultan no doubt intends to rule his people according to the ancient
Turkish policy of repression and extortion.

The
danger of a revolt of the army is the greatest that lies before the
Turk. As Moslems they can be relied on against Christians, but as human
beings there must be a limit to their powers of enduring a condition in
which they are not onlydeprived of pay, and unable to earn
money for themselves, but even deprived of food, and sometimes on the
verge of starvation. A ruler who is unable to feed, or to pay for the
transport of his troops, stands in great danger of a military
revolt—especially among Syrian, Albanian, and other regiments of
non-Turks. The Turkish army has proved its fighting powers not long
since, in spite of treachery and incompetence among some of its leaders,
but while the greater part of the force must be kept locked up in
Europe, on the north-west frontier of the empire, the presence of troops
is urgently needed in Armenia and in Arabia, and the most pressing
question is how they can be spared, and how they can be sent to such
remote districts.

Among
the subject Christians the Armenians alone have so far found courage in
despair, in their attempt to win freedom from an intolerable double
tyranny—of Kurdish chiefs and Turkish Pashas; but if success were in the
end to crown their efforts the Armenians would not stand alone. The
Christians of North Syria—Greek or Syrian in creed—have many grievances
of their own. The more fortunate Maronites of the Lebanon province, who
have a Christian police, and who are keen politicians, might become
innoculated with the idea of independence. The flame of fanaticism once
lit would not distinguish Greek and Armenian Christians. Any success
against the Turks in Armenia would lead to insurrection in other
provinces.

Amid
so many dangers the danger of Moslem disaffection must seem greatest to
a Moslem ruler, convinced that the European powers are most unwilling to
proceed to extremities. The attention of Russia is turned to the far
East, and no power but. England is really earnest in the Armenian cause,
this earnestness being confined perhaps mainly to religious circles and
to liberal politicians. The real rulers of Turkey are not those
ministers who are moved as pawns in the game, but the secret Derwish
orders on whom the Sultan relies. They form powerful organisations
bitterly opposed to all Western ideas, and perfectly informed, through
their lower initiates, of all that goes on in the various provinces of
the empire. The realities of government in Turkey are very different
from its diplomatic exterior appearances; and the Khalif dominates the
Sultan.

It
may be that the Turks will once more assert their old predominance over
their subjects, since their successor has not yet appeared. The
Armenians are destined either to work out their own future or to perish
in the attempt. It is practically impossible for Europe to interfere,
unless Europe is ready to undertake the administration of new provinces
in Asia. The subject populations are so much split up, and have so long
been unaccustomed to rule themselves, that nothing but anarchy can be
expected if the Turkish administration is overthrown. The happiest
outcome that could be expected would be the creation of a new Christian
province in North Syria or in Armenia, where the oppressed might find
refuge, and learn by degrees to rule themselves, until fit for
independent existence as a Christian state.

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